


Enough

by divine_rose



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Kingdom Hearts III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 01:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20899271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divine_rose/pseuds/divine_rose
Summary: What he could never be and what forgiveness was for now.3k of post-KH3 Terraqua feels because goodness do they have a lot to unpack.





	Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you haven't published fanfic in a solid forever and sometimes you're possessed by the ghost of spite to write 3k of a soft boy crying to prove a point.
> 
> Bless Kristin for beta-ing and leaving the most delightful caterwauling notes.

Terra told Ven he was all right. A comparatively small sin on the great big tower of them that made up his life; his very being. Another little pebble on the tower of boulders. Though at this point in his life (was this even his life anymore? Yes...yes it was, he was here, he was  _ him _ ) even one tiny pebble felt like it could topple the tower. Whether the boy believed him, that was a different story. Terra liked to think he did, in part, if he was being honest with himself, because he feared their reaction should he say no. 

No, he wasn’t alright. 

He wasn’t sure if he ever would be again. How could one be? When a decade was spent drowning but not drowning, in a state where the water filled his lungs and his body and his mind but he still managed to hold on, refusing to die and end this horrible state of being. A decade spent as dying embers, the last flickering of will he had left in him grasping at something, anything, to keep him holding on. Used, ripped asunder, and put back again only to be used once more. 

Terra hated mirrors. He couldn’t remember if he did before, but now any reflective surface was like a cruel test he had to pass. As if somehow the reflections would betray him and reveal what he feared: that it still somehow, someway, wasn’t him in his own skin. 

It was in front of the mirror at 3am where she found him. Hunched over, grip on the porcelain edges of the sink so tight one could swear it might fracture under the pressure. A fitting metaphor, really. The solid determination in his warm brown eyes as he studied his own reflection, every sharp and curved line that made up the various planes of his face, as if looking for the slightest sight of betrayal. The slightest flicker of muscle that wasn’t as it should be. The slightest hint that there could still somehow, someway, be more than him in there. 

Aqua had seen it firsthand: what Terra was searching for so intently in that mirror. She had seen the way that wicked man had twisted Terra’s features, so much as to make him look alien, the softness and warmth and strength in his smile twisted and contorted in a way she never imagined they could be. His smile had always made her heart flutter, the feeling like it was floating in her chest. That sneer he had fixed on her on that desolate land had made it sink like a stone. 

She had to shut her own eyes for a moment when the memory, bubbling up inside her and leaving a bitter taste in her mouth, almost proved too much. Yes, it was painful to her, painful in a way that almost made all those years in the darkness seem like nothing (almost). Though she knew, for Terra, it was worse. Aqua steeled herself, a deep, grounding breath. Terra was always their rock, her rock. A warm, grounding force of nature and comfort. She silently promised herself she would be that for him. 

The door to the bathroom was cracked open just slightly, just enough to allow a sliver of light into the dark hallway and illuminate his warring features to the world outside. It wasn’t intentional; surely he must have forgotten to close it all the way in his haste. The haste of what Aqua was sure was waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night with nothing but the darkness and his mind and all the terrors therein. Slowly, carefully, as if one was approaching a wounded animal, Aqua placed her hand on the door and pushed. 

“Terra?” She kept her voice soft, barely above a whisper. After all, he was distressed, and Ven was fast asleep down the hallway. Neither of them would want to rouse him. He turned to look at her, seemingly startled enough to make her think that perhaps she somehow still had been  _ too _ loud. 

“Aqua?” His voice rasped out in a way that made it barely audible, more gasp than anything. He swallowed before speaking again, knowing how feeble his first attempt was, his throat feeling thick. “What are you…” he began, straightening, trying to pretend that everything was alright, and that he hadn’t just been staring deeply into the chasm of a mirror in the middle of the morning. 

“Ssh,” she hushed before he could finish, carefully slipping inside the room and shutting the door behind her, a finger carefully placed at her lips. “Ven’s still asleep.” She said, to momentarily deflect.

He should certainly hope Ven was asleep. Terra didn’t know what he’d do if he woke  _ both _ of them with his late night episode. He hated that he was even  _ doing  _ this, and that he was even worrying  _ them.  _ Terra let out a sigh, the kind that seemed to momentarily deflate his entire being as he hunched forward just slightly, more frustrated at himself then anything else, and Aqua knew that. She had seen that look so many times before. “Sorry.” He said after a moment of silence had elapsed between them.

“For what?” She asked, as if she couldn’t fathom what he could possibly be apologizing over, but he knew otherwise. 

“Waking you?” He offered pitifully, he couldn’t very well tell her the truth. What if she thought….he shifted his gaze, away from her prying eyes. He did that a lot lately—hide from her. Because he was afraid of what she might see in his eyes, and what he might see in hers. Vague flashes of barely conscious memories, of various looks of utter terror. Snapshots taken at different moments. The dark margin. The graveyard. 

A part of him feared, deep,  _ deep  _ down that she’d find him irredeemable. Even if she was the only thing keeping him together all these years. That faint flicker of hope, of  _ light.  _ The promise of returning home, to this, to them. Both of them. The desire to set things  _ right.  _ Though in the aftermath of Xehanort, of the battlefield, he wasn’t quite sure what that looked like anymore. He was directionless, and ghosts played on his idle mind. 

“You didn’t wake me,” she whispered. His thoughts had made it seem like an eternity had passed between spoken words, when in reality he supposed, it had only been seconds. He didn’t know what to say after that, so he went back to the quiet. 

Aqua pursed her lips into a thin line, a storm of thoughts shifting in her mind before she decided to continue talking to fill the silence between them. 

“To be honest…” she began, carefully lifting herself up to sit on the edge of the sink he had been brutalizing a moment before with a tiny hop, “I couldn’t sleep either.” She crossed her legs, somehow avoiding catching her foot in the wide leg of her pajama pants. 

He knew this was bait. was supposed to ask why, she was going to tell him an anecdote to try to calm his shaky mind; try to seal the rift. All in an attempt to try to calm him, to make him feel better. A small pebble of comfort to try and stop a dam from breaking. He closed his eyes for a moment. couldn’t even bring himself to play into this so casual game of back and forths. 

Aqua kept talking regardless. For a moment, her voice lost the vibrance, dulling, as if the gossamer had worn slightly to reveal something underneath, “I feel like I had been asleep for so long…” she whispered, “I think….” she paused. As if the words were difficult for her to say but she was going to push them through her lips anyway. Terra glanced up slightly then, looking at her, but  _ not  _ looking at her. Never meeting her eyes. 

“It reminds me of it.” She finally said, as if she was admitting to some terrible secret, voice low and hushed. “Sleep.” The whisper grew frailer. Vulnerable in a way he hadn’t seen from her, or allowed himself to see from her. “It reminds me of the darkness.” She finally finished. 

He practically froze. His blood felt like ice in his veins. His mind began to race, a mile a minute, a symphony of shame and horror. 

_ It’s your fault. _

_ You hurt her, you hurt THEM. _

_ You allowed it to happen. _

_ How much blood is on your hands? Because of YOUR weakness?  _

_ You couldn’t protect them. You couldn’t stop him. _

_ Failure.  _

_ Master Eraqus was right, how could you think you were worthy of the keyblade, let alone to be a master? _

_ She knows what you did.  _

_ She hates you. _

_ They both hate you. _

The tears came rushing to his eyes faster then he had any hope to stop them, bitter and hot as to sting his eyes as he had to physically turn away from her becausehe didn’t want her to see him cry. Not because of the weakness, but because he didn’t  _ deserve  _ to. 

“Terra…” his movement was so hasty that she got up from the edge of the sink and reached out to him. He flinched when her hand touched his shoulder. Gently.  _ Gently _ . As if one wrong move could shatter him like glass. 

“Aqua.” He hated how his voice got strangled in his throat, coming out as a choked sob. 

She was trying so hard to tell him. Trying so hard to say it was alright, that he wasn’t alone. They both had tasted darkness, angry and foul and bitter on their tongues. She wasn’t infallible either. None of them were. They were human. Weren’t they? If she could fall, she who was held as a paragon, then surely that meant they were merely human, right? Human and not damned. She swallowed hard herself. She was trying to comfort him, but she knew, deep down, that she herself struggled with the same clawing, terrible questions and fears. A different flavor of darkness. 

Silence hung in the air like a curtain between them, slowly descending. For a moment Aqua feared that if she allowed it to close, he would be walled off to her forever.  _ Not again.  _ She reached down for his hand, holding it, gripping it tighter then she probably should have but dammit, she had missed his hand  _ before _ and she wouldn’t again. His hand felt warm in hers, it would be comforting, ordinarily. She tried to turn him to face her, and despite his greater mass, she succeeded. 

Aqua had reached for his hand and turned him to her so quickly that he barely had time to react. A determination set in her bones, one he knew well—and honestly, if he was in a better state of mind, he would have said that he had missed terribly. That hard-set look in her eyes and the way her lips were pulled into a thin line. He wasn’t sure what she intended, but he knew he still couldn't meet her gaze. There was so much, and what he had done….he couldn’t look at her. 

She made it rather difficult when she hugged him tightly, as if she was afraid he’d slip away if she let go. The contact staggered him for a moment, causing him to take one cautionary step back in order to balance himself from the bit of force she came at him with. “Aqua!” He gasped out in surprise, but she didn’t move. Her arms wound around him tightly, giving a faint reassuring squeeze and her head resting softly against his chest. He didn’t know what to do... _ this _ ...wasn’t what he was expecting, if he was being honest with himself, so he just stood there, half frozen and feeling more and more foolish with each passing moment for it. 

When he finally decided on an action, it was to virtually collapse around her. Like a mountain crumbling into the vastness and openness of the sea. His arms folded around her smaller form. He was bigger than her, but in this very moment, he seemed so small, so fragile. Aqua could faintly hear him choke back a sob as all his defenses came crumbling down in an instant. The dam finally breaking at the first sign of genuine  _ acceptance _ he had been shown in what felt like an eternity. She could feel a few tears against her shoulder but said nothing, even as Terra’s arm slowly came up to wrap around her, enveloping her in an embrace just as she was to him. He held her gently, squeezing just slightly. 

“Aqua,” his voice cracked under the weight of a sob, “Aqua,” he said again, trying to gain control of it but the second time sounded more broken then the first. 

“It’s ok, Terra.” she whispered, turning her head slightly as she held him. Her warm breath was comforting against his ear. “I’m here,” she moved a hand up to thread through his hair gently, reassuringly, “ _ You’re _ here, and you’re not going anywhere.” she dared to press a soft kiss against the shell of his ear, the ghost of one really, but it was appreciated.

He couldn’t help but believe every word. She held him for what felt like an eternity, never leaving each other’s arms even as they slowly sank down to meet the cool tiles of the floor. With each run of her fingers through his hair it felt like the storm inside him was calming, that perhaps everything could be buried. That he truly had returned and did exactly what he said he was going to do. Make things right. Perhaps. But…

The thought still nagged at him, gnawing and gnashing in the back of his mind. He feared he would destroy this, this tumultuous peace if he spoke the words aloud...but he had to. He closed his eyes tightly, steeling himself. He savored the feeling of her embrace before he whispered, “Aqua…” his tone serious, weighty with the words yet unspoken. 

“Yes, Terra?” she whispered, her stroking of his hair, which had previously enjoyed a gentle rhythm had faltered slightly. 

“I’m so, so sorry….” the serious tone did not last long before a sob crept in again, he squeezed her lightly, burying his head into the crook of her shoulder, “It’s all my fault, Aqua...it was all my fault you…” he began, but he couldn’t finish it without breaking completely now. Shattering suddenly into a million pieces. She only held him tighter. 

“Terra….” her voice was soft in the face of this new storm.

“Aqua, it’s all my fault you….” he couldn’t say the words, they were stuck in his throat. The weight of them, it was as if to speak it aloud would make it  _ real _ , and it was the thing he feared the most in all the worlds...but it had happened. It had happened, and he had caused it, so why couldn’t he say…

“Aqua, it was my fault you fell.” he finally forced it out, he wouldn’t elaborate more, they both knew the meaning well. He knew. If he closed his eyes this very moment he could see it all again as if it were happening before him: the twisted shape of the monster he had become, ordered by the facet of the man who had taken his body, his form, his life. Ordered to strike one of the two people he cared for the most in all the worlds. The person he....

She was quiet, her ministrations with his hair falling still. Terra sucked in a shaky breath, savoring these last few moments of contact and comfort. He suspected they would be the last. He was close enough to her to feel her intake of breath before she spoke, and his heart froze in the eternities between the seconds.

“Oh, Terra…” she began, mournfully, almost. A deep sigh escaped her, as if she was emptying out her entire being. He braced for a million reactions. Her to throw him back, to call him a monster. Various facets of the same scene all ending the same. She would hate him. Ten years. Ten years in the darkness. Ten years reaching out to him, as he desperately reached for her, only to be felled in the end. By him.

He didn’t deserve their forgiveness. He knew that. He knew she had seen his heart come out of that creature, he knew she’d put two and two together eventually. This honeymoon stage of their reunion would end and…

His thoughts fizzled out like dying embers when he suddenly felt her hands on him, moving him gently, carefully, to face her. He quickly shifted his gaze, he still couldn’t look her in the eyes. 

“Terra,” her voice was soft, sad. Pleading. “Look at me, Terra.” She whispered, and everytime she said his name he couldn’t help but close his eyes. How could she say it with such softness, such….

“You see now?” He spoke quietly, like a voice from the grave. “The things I’ve done...to you most of all...I-”

“Terra.” She stopped his words, a sternness to her voice that took him by surprise that he did exactly as she had asked, he looked her in the eyes. 

Immediately, her hands touched his cheeks gently, to keep him there. To keep him looking and focused on her. “It wasn’t you,” she spoke, finality in her tone that usually meant there was no room for argument. 

He didn’t understand. Of course it was him, he was there, barely, but  _ there _ . There enough to feel the horror, to want with everything to stop it, but the chains were bound too tight and he was merely a puppet, yanked along by a cruel puppeteer. 

“Terra,” she was staring into his eyes intently, solemnly. She wanted him to believe every word she was about to say, “Terra, that...that wasn’t your fault.” She shook her head lightly. Only after she said it did she lower her own gaze, the shame of the thing one feared most...but they had survived. They were here, and they were themselves. The darkness was not the death sentence they were so led to believe. “I spent...so long there…” she whispered, “Waiting...searching...I couldn’t….” her voice dropped to barely a whisper. The words spoken to him, for him, because he would understand in a way no one else would. He understood  _ her  _ in a way no one else would, “I couldn’t hold out anymore...I had lost... _ everything _ .” Her friends, her hope, her keyblade, her light. “You’re not alone.” Her thumb gently stroked his cheek, wiping away the trails of dry tears and a few fresh ones. 

Her acceptance of everything, of  _ him _ practically took his breath away. The one last complete fear he had, that things would turn, that this was all a temporary happiness, was pulled out from under him. She accepted what happened...the best one could..and she accepted  _ him _ . She took notice of his stunned silence and gave something of a bemused smile, a soft sigh escaping her. 

“Terra, I fought so hard and so long for you ...for both of you. Did you think I was going to give up after all of that?” She gently removed her hands from his face but he found himself greatly missing their warmth, a ghost of a laugh escaping him.

“No...I guess not.” He looked at her with a soft smile, reaching forward to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. 

“It’s ok to feel like this…” Aqua assured him softly, her hands seeking his out and gently holding them in hers, “It’s ok to take your time, to heal...we both will, we’ll do it together.” 

Terra wasn’t sure he could completely forgive himself, Aqua was right in that regard...time. It would all take time. Time to heal, time to reap a decade lost to the dark..but he had Aqua and Ven. He had forgiveness and acceptance from the ones he cared for most, and for now, that was enough. 

That was enough. 


End file.
